AR will stay around for some time at least. I wouldn’t be worried about flights in the first half of 2024 or longer.

Opinions aside, the privatisation of state owned companies needs to be approved by Congress – the bill was only tabled yesterday and won’t be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies until late January or February, and if approved it would also require an ok from the Senate. Whether that will happen is anyone’s guess, as the government seems to enjoy popular support but does not have a majority in either chamber.

Say the bill turned into law, the government is then required to do a price appraisal process and look for potential buyers. Contrary to other state owned companies such as Arsat, Banco Nación or YPF, there don’t seem to be any prospective buyers for AR at this stage (and rightly so, as it bleeds money and the same government has established an open skies policy). If they found a buyer, contract negotiation/due diligence takes several months. If no buyer is found, the government has the options of keeping the company afloat or liquidate it (“gifting the company to its employees” as mentioned by Milei is in fact another form of liquidation as they will never get the money to run it). Insolvency processes in Argentina take a very long time.

Because Argentina is the child of Italy, of course AR is our very own Alitalia.